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‘We dare defend our rights’: Alabama Republicans standing by Moore reflect state’s tradition of defiance
Wayne Reynolds moves a Roy Moore campaign sign into place at the Madison County Republican Men’s Club monthly breakfast at Trinity United Methodist Church on Saturday, November 18, 2017, in Huntsville, AL. Most attendees showed their open support of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
BRENT, Ala. — Embattled Senate candidate Roy Moore is pinning his hopes for victory on Alabama’s long-held tradition of sharp defiance to perceived threats from forces outside the state.
That rebellious spirit, which dates to long before the state’s segregationist Gov. George Wallace became a national figure in the 1960s by railing against the “central government” in Washington, has been apparent in recent days as top state GOP officials have closed ranks around Moore amid a stream of allegations of sexual misconduct against the Republican and calls by national party leaders for him to step aside.
Moore’s campaign has taken to repeating Alabama’s motto, written in Latin on the state coat of arms in 1923 and translated to “We dare defend our rights,” while Moore backers have repeatedly argued that their state has the right to decide its own fate in the Dec. 12 special election.
“Alabamians will be the ultimate jury in this election, not the media or those from afar,” said state party chairwoman Terry Lathan.
Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said Friday she would vote for Moore despite being bothered by the accusations against him, because, “I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices.”
Similar sentiments are coming from local-level Republicans such as Steve Morgan, the vice chairman of the Bibb County GOP in rural central Alabama, who says he doesn’t know what to make of the allegations against Moore but is frustrated by the involvement of those who live outside of Alabama — starting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other national leaders who have abandoned Moore.
“The people in Alabama don’t like to be told what to do,” said Morgan, 69, who did not support Moore in the GOP primary.
“I never liked Roy Moore,” he continued. “But guess what? I’m voting for Roy Moore, because I hate the stupidity that has invaded the Republican Party.”
Political tensions here have mounted over the past week as Moore’s candidacy has made Alabama the epicenter of a national debate about sexual assault, the future of the U.S. Senate, the fate of President Trump’s agenda and the direction of the Republican Party.
The Senate seat had widely been expected to remain in Republican hands when it was vacated by Jeff Sessions, who became attorney general. A GOP victory was expected even after Moore defeated the incumbent who had been appointed to replace Sessions, Sen. Luther Strange, who had the backing of Trump and other national party leaders.
Dr. Bonnie Libhart shows her support for Roy Moore at the Madison County Republican Men’s Club monthly breakfast. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) 
Daniel Burns hands out Roy Moore campaign material at the Madison County Republican Men’s Club monthly breakfast. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Republican voters will have a decisive say in who wins. Nearly two-thirds of Alabama voters typically vote Republican, which means Democrats don’t have enough people to win statewide without Republicans either crossing over or staying home in protest.
But Moore faces a well-financed Democratic opponent, former prosecutor Doug Jones, who has tried to reach out to white Republicans with his own twist on the politics of defiance — including a television ad called “Honor” in which he narrates a Civil War battle involving a Confederate general from Alabama.
Jones, meanwhile, has largely avoided discussing the sexual-assault allegations against Moore, although one of his most recent television ads features a Republican who makes an oblique reference. “You read the story, and it just shakes you,” she says.
A Fox News poll completed after the allegations surfaced found that Jones had taken the lead with 50 percent of likely voters, compared with 42 percent for Moore. Other polls have shown the race tied or with Moore still holding on to a lead.
The Washington Post first reported Nov. 9 on four women who said Moore pursued them as teenagers, including one who said she was 14 and Moore was 32 when he touched her sexually. Two other women have since told The Post that Moore pursued them about the same time when they worked as teenagers at the mall in Gadsden, Ala. Another woman, represented by attorney Gloria Allred, says Moore assaulted her in a parked car when she was 16. AL.com has reported on two other women, one who says Moore groped her bottom in 1991, when she was 28 years old, and a second who says Moore asked her out in 1982, when she was a 17-year-old waitress at the Red Lobster restaurant in Gadsden.
Moore, 70, has consistently denied any sexual misconduct and has alleged that the women are part of a politically motivated plot against him. In an interview with conservative radio host Sean Hannity, Moore did not rule out the possibility that he dated teenagers older than 16, the legal age of consent, when he was in his 30s. He told Hannity he did not approve of such relationships now. “If I did, I’m not going to dispute these things, but I don’t remember anything like that,” Moore said.
The Moore campaign, which has always been anchored in his opposition to the Republican political establishment, has attempted to turn the debate over the accusations into a referendum on state independence, even though the accusers are all local women. At a rally Friday, Kayla Moore, the candidate’s wife, said that the local feedback she has heard about the allegations has been supportive of her husband. “Most of the negative has been from out of state,” she said. “The people of Alabama know what is going on here.”
She was echoing her husband, who tweeted Thursday what has become the core of the campaign’s message: “This is an effort by Mitch McConnell and his cronies to steal this election from the people of Alabama and they will not stand for it!”
Moore and his surrogates regularly attack the national media and Republican leaders, arguing that there is a conspiracy to take away the rights of voters. “This is a usurpation by Mitch McConnell of the 17th Amendment that gives voters the right who we want to choose who we want in the government,” declared Ann Eubank, the leader of the Alabama Legislative Watchdogs, at a Moore campaign event in Montgomery on Friday.
[National Republican move against Roy Moore grows — but key Alabama Republicans are not joining in]
Many Republicans, at least so far, are embracing that view.
In interviews with nearly two dozen Republican voters across the state, only a handful said they knew people who said they would abandon Moore altogether. Some have burrowed into the details of the accusations, denials and counterclaims like detectives, trying to suss out the truth amid a sea of online misinformation.
Josh Lambert, 23, a software developer from Centreville, spent the primary volunteering to distribute Moore signs around the county, but after the accusations surfaced, he stopped volunteering. He said he won’t vote for a Democrat who supports abortion rights, but he was unsure about his vote for Moore. “Please hold a press conference, an actual press conference, and take questions,” he said when asked whether he had a message for Moore. “It would help me as a voter.”
Others have made clear that, like the governor’s, their loyalty to the GOP and the prospect of another Senate vote for an antiabortion Supreme Court justice are more important, as long as any doubt remains.
Huntsville Republicans gather at the Madison County Republican Men’s Club monthly breakfast. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
At a Republican Party breakfast in Huntsville on Saturday, party leaders argued that voters should focus more on the political implications of the race than the allegations. “Doug Jones is going to vote wrong, and Roy Moore is going to vote right,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (Ala.), who ran against Moore in the GOP primary.
Brooks also seemed to jokingly downplay the significance of allegations of Moore’s behavior 40 years ago. “Just remember, he was a Democrat back then,” Brooks said. “He has been converted into a Republican now.”
David Pinkleton, a young Republican activist in the Huntsville area who lost his part-time job organizing for Moore when the Republican National Committee pulled from the race, said he was struggling with his decision to continue supporting Moore. “I don’t envy my fellow Republicans and Alabamians, because everybody is trying to rationalize,” said Pinkleton, who has worked to support victims of sex trafficking in the state. “I do want a culture where victims can be heard and believed.”
Some, such as Julia Cooper, 75, a semiretired nurse from Montgomery, said they were continuing to support Moore because of the spiritual battle he was waging. She said that when she was a high school student in Camden, Ala., a man in his 20s or 30s came to her house to date her but she resisted his requests. “Even at the age of 14, you could have walked away,” she said of the accusers. “If you want to get out, you can get out.”
A few said privately that they will no longer support Moore, although they are wary of announcing the decision publicly, given a party rule that bars people who want to run for office from supporting a Democratic nominee.
Jones strategists say they need three things to happen to win: Some moderate Republicans in the suburbs, especially women, have to cross party line; black turnout needs to be high; and other Republicans who would never vote for a Democrat need to stay home.
Jones, who is white, has been carefully spreading different messages to win his target voters. On RB radio, he is running an ad in which he recounts his closing arguments as the lead prosecutor in the case against two Ku Klux Klan members responsible for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four black schoolgirls.
[An Alabama Senate race conjures the awful 1963 church bombing that killed 4 black girls]
At the same time on television, Jones has been trying to reach out to white Republicans directly, in part by tapping into the deep history of animosity from Alabama to Washington leaders. The signature ad of the race is the spot in which he narrates the Civil War battle, a tale from Gettysburg in which an Alabama general leads a failed charge on Union troops from Maryland.
Jones calls both generals brave men, but he says that “those times have passed” and it is time to change the approach. “I want to go to Washington and meet the representatives from Maryland and those from every other state, not on the battlefield, but to find common ground,” he says, positioning himself as an heir to Alabama’s fighting legacy.
Giles Perkins, the chairman of Jones campaign, says the state’s strong political identity cannot be ignored by either campaign. “We Alabama voters have a lot of pride in our state and like to make our own decisions,” he said.
Some Republicans here suggested that the polls showing a tightening race may undercount Moore’s support. “It’s kind of like George Wallace,” said Joe Fuller, a longtime state party official, who says he is voting for Moore despite the allegations because he always votes his party’s ticket. “You either loved George Wallace, or you didn’t like him. Years ago, I never found anybody who voted for George Wallace, but he always won.”
[The six likeliest ways this whole Roy Moore saga could end, ranked]
Neal Cook, a Winston County Republican who supported Strange in the primary, said he was still undecided on his vote. “One day he will stand before the ultimate judge, and the truth will be revealed,” Cook said of Moore.
Others have been inspired by the allegations to redouble their commitment in an effort to fight back against Moore’s foes.
During the primary, the Moore campaign erected an eight-foot sign for the candidate on the property of the Wilson Garage Door Co. on Dan Tibbs Road in Huntsville, which came down after the primary and was expected to go back up after Thanksgiving.
After the allegations broke, Daniel Burns, a volunteer for the Moore campaign, got a text message from the grandson of the company’s owner. “My granddad said the sign can go back up whenever you have a chance,” Burns said the message read. “He’s tired of this nonsense on the news.”
Robert Mugabe removed as leader of Zimbabwe’s ruling party
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US warship collides with Japanese tug boat, latest mishap for the Navy’s 7th Fleet
A U.S. warship collided with a Japanese commercial tug boat in Japan’s Sagami Bay on Saturday, marking the fifth time this year that a ship in the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet in the Pacific has been involved in a crash.
The Japanese tug boat lost propulsion and drifted into the USS Benfold during a towing exercise. The U.S. guided-missile destroyer sustained minimal damage, and there were no reported injuries on either vessel, according to a press release from the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet.
The USS Benfold, which is awaiting a full damage assessment, remains at sea under its own power. The incident will be investigated, the 7th Fleet said.
Here’s a look at previous crashes involving U.S. Navy warships in 2017, including two deadly collisions that left 17 sailors dead:
Jan. 31: The USS Antietam runs aground off coast of Japan
The USS Antietam ran aground off the coast of Japan on Jan. 31, damaging its propellers and spilling oil into the water.
The guided-missile destroyer grounded near the U.S. Naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, after anchoring out in high winds, the Navy Times reported.
Noel Celis/AFP/Getty ImagesThe crew noticed the ship was dragging its anchor before getting it back underway, according to the Navy Times, adding that the crew then felt the ship shudder and lose pitch control of its propellers.
About 1,100 gallons of oil were dumped into the Tokyo Bay, the Navy Times reported. No one was injured.
A Navy investigation revealed that the former Capt. Joseph Carrian of the USS Antietam was « ultimately responsible » for the ship’s running aground, causing an estimated $4.2 million in damage, according to Stars and Stripes.
May 9: The USS Lake Champlain collides with South Korean fishing boat
The USS Lake Champlain, also a guided-missile cruiser, collided with a South Korean fishing boat in the Sea of Japan May 9.
The warship was engaged in routine training when it collided with the 9.8-ton fishing boat off South Korea’s east coast, according to The Associated Press.
Sean M. Castellano/U.S. Navy via Getty ImagesNo one was injured in the incident.
The warship tried to alert the fishing boat before the collision but it was too late.
June 17: The USS Fitzgerald collides with a Philippine container ship
Seven U.S. sailors were killed when the USS Fitzgerald collided with Philippine-flagged container ship in the middle of the night off the coast of Yokosuuka, Japan, June 17.
The destroyer was operating about 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka when it collided with the ACX Crystal. Most of the Fitzgerald’s 300 crew members on board would have been asleep at the time, The Associated Press reported.
The Fitzgerald sustained damage on its starboard side and experienced flooding in some spaces as a result of the collision, according to the Navy.
U.S. Navy via Getty ImagesAll seven sailors who died were initially missing after the collision and found in the flooded quarters after the destroyer returned to port, a Navy official told ABC News. Those quarters flooded within 90 seconds of the collision.
The area is often busy with sea traffic, with as many as 400 ships passing through it every day, according to Japan’s coast guard.
The Navy last week relieved the USS Fitzgerald’s commanding officer, executive officer and senior enlisted sailor for alleged mistakes that led to the deadly crash.
Aug. 21: The USS John S. McCain collides with a merchant ship
Ten U.S. sailors were killed when the USS John S. McCain, named after the father and grandfather of Vietnam war hero Sen. John S. McCain III, R-Ariz., collided with commercial vessel Alnic MC in waters east of Singapore on Aug. 21, according to the Navy.
The collision occurred east of the Strait of Malacca around 6:24 a.m. Japan Standard Time. The guided-missile destroyer was on its way for a routine port visit in Singapore, the Navy said in a statement.
« It was one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, » said Steve Ganyard, an ABC News contributor, retired Marine colonel and a former deputy assistant secretary of state.
« One-third of all maritime shipping goes through here, » Ganyard said. « So there were probably extenuating circumstances but no doubt, as we saw in the Fitzgerald, there was probably human error involved, as well. »
» /Joshua Fulton/AFP/Getty Images
The warship suffered significant damage to the hull, causing flooding in nearby departments, including the crew berthing, machinery and communications rooms, the Navy said.
« This leaves a real gap in the Pacific fleet’s capabilities at a time when tensions with North Korea are high, » Ganyard said.
All 10 sailors who died were initially missing and their remains were later found inside sealed compartments of the warship’s damaged hull. Another five sailors sustained non-life-threatening injuries, the Navy said.
The crew consisted of 23 officers, 24 petty officers and 291 sailors, according to the Navy’s website. Its home port is in Yokosuka, Japan.
ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman and Elizabeth McLaughlin contributed to this report.
Why a Firm Believer in Tax Cuts Could Derail the Senate Tax Cut Plan
Senate Republican leaders, who are seeking a major legislative victory before year’s end, hope to bring their tax bill, which differs significantly from the House measure, to a vote after Thanksgiving. But it is unclear whether it has enough support to pass in the narrowly divided chamber.
Offering concessions to skeptical senators one by one could prove an impossible task for Republican leaders, who face restraints under Senate rules on the total size of the tax cut package. Those leaders are hoping, instead, that they can pull off a version of Mr. Ryan’s strategy: all but daring holdouts to derail the party’s top priority.
Republicans, who control Congress and the White House, are desperately seeking their first significant legislative achievement of the Trump presidency. Mr. Johnson’s public wavering elicited calls from President Trump and a visit from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Gary D. Cohn, chairman of the National Economic Council, all of whom sounded out Mr. Johnson about his concerns.
Mr. Johnson is a firm believer in the power of tax cuts to lift economic growth. He grew up on a Wisconsin farm, worked as an accountant after college, and spent more than 30 years immersed in his family’s plastics company before assuming his Senate seat in 2010.
Since winning re-election in 2016, he has not shied from voicing displeasure with the Republican leadership. He was an early and vocal critic of the party’s legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act, though he ultimately voted in favor of the bill.
His concerns with the Senate’s tax bill stem not from its overarching goal of cutting taxes but with how the bill treats small businesses and large corporations. Mr. Johnson says the legislation is tilted in favor of big companies, and he is eager to find a way to level the playing field.
Mr. Ryan, who was his party’s 2012 vice-presidential nominee, helped Mr. Johnson’s ascendance to the Senate. Mr. Ryan barnstormed Wisconsin on Mr. Johnson’s behalf as his come-from-behind re-election bid took off last year, and the two have forged a bond in Washington.
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“You know what we control, with Ron Johnson’s election?” Mr. Ryan asked the crowd at a rally the night before the election. “We in Wisconsin control who controls the United States Senate. If you want to see anything get done — pass it in the House, get it from the Senate and get it on a Republican president’s desk and get it into law — Ron Johnson’s got to get re-elected.”
But the dynamics of the two chambers differ markedly. With the House tax bill, Mr. Ryan and other Republican leaders employed a command-and-control process and a rocket-speed schedule to minimize Republican dissent. The strategy worked: The bill sailed through the House on Thursday along party lines, two weeks after it was introduced.
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Al Drago for The New York Times
In the Senate, where the party’s margins are much smaller and individual members are more powerful, party leaders will need to win over what could be a half-dozen or more wavering Republicans, beginning with Mr. Johnson. Others include Senators Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and John McCain.
The Senate bill cleared the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday night. Before he can support it, Mr. Johnson said, he wants to see changes in its treatment of pass-through entities to put them on equal footing with corporations. While rates would fall for Mr. Johnson’s family business under the Senate bill, they would not fall as much as those for larger businesses.
More than 90 percent of American businesses are pass-throughs. The Senate bill would give pass-through owners a 17.4 percent deduction on their income taxes, while cutting the corporate rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. The special deduction means the owner of a high-profit pass-through would pay an effective top rate of about 32 percent, well above what a traditional corporation would pay.
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The pass-through treatment has earned the endorsement of the National Federation of Independent Business, the powerful lobbying group for small businesses. “We very much like the Senate bill — it’s a really good deal for the vast majority of pass-through businesses,” said Jack Mozloom, a spokesman for the group. “Based on our analysis, we think it’s going to provide them with a substantial tax cut.”
Mr. Johnson launched the family’s plastics sheeting company in 1979 with his brother-in-law. Over the course of his career, he said, he has seen many family-run companies — his customers — be snapped up by larger corporations, or fold after being unable to compete with them. He said that the tax code unfairly advantaged those corporations, and that the Senate tax bill would widen those advantages, by cutting corporate taxes more substantially than those for pass-through businesses.
Mr. Johnson’s preferred approach to that imbalance would be to force all corporations to become pass-throughs, a move he says would equalize tax treatment and encourage more corporate investment. He says this approach would not personally benefit him because it would not cut taxes on pass-throughs; Mr. Johnson earned between $215,000 and just over $2 million in pass-through income in 2016, through several limited liability companies.
But Mr. Johnson concedes that his Republican colleagues do not seem likely to add such a provision to their tax bill. “Unfortunately,” he said, “it’s pretty late in the game.”
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And so the question becomes: What changes would he accept?
Republican leaders will probably need to pose that question to several senators in the days to come. Mr. Flake, of Arizona, and Mr. Corker, of Tennessee, have raised concerns over how much the bill would add to the budget deficit, particularly if Republicans do not allow all individual — and pass-through — tax breaks to expire at the end of 2025, as the bill currently calls for.
Ms. Murkowski, of Alaska, said on Friday that if the bill continued to include a repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate to buy health insurance, she would prefer that Congress first pass a different bill to help stabilize insurance markets. “However,” she said in a statement, “one should not assume this is a precondition for my support for the tax bill.”
Mr. Johnson suggested in the interview that if the Senate did not force all companies to operate as pass-throughs, it should at least cut their taxes further to equalize their treatment with larger corporations. Such cuts, he acknowledged, would be expensive in terms of lost tax revenues, and Republicans must stay within the $1.5 trillion limit for additional deficits in order to pass the tax bill on a party-line vote.
The senator said he would have preferred if Republicans, in an earlier budget bill, had set that limit higher, at $2 trillion or $3 trillion.
For now, Mr. Johnson said he was gathering information and trying to work with administration officials on identifying the group of pass-through companies that most need additional help.
“I’m optimistic” that solutions will be found, Mr. Johnson said, “because we all understand how important this is. I don’t want to block this. There’s no way I want to block this.”
Senate leaders are counting on that attitude, as they try to replicate Mr. Ryan’s success in the House. They believe that on a core conservative issue, at a time when the party is still searching for a signature legislative victory under Mr. Trump, no senator will want to be the one who blocks the bill.
They also note that even though Mr. Johnson raised similarly loud concerns over the party’s failed health care bill earlier this year, in the end, he voted for it.
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A submarine has vanished, launching a frantic search for 44 people on board
Argentine authorities are scrambling to find a three-decade-old submarine that suddenly stopped communicating during a routine mission on Wednesday — an emergency authorities say could range from a fried electrical system to something much worse.
The diesel-electric ARA San Juan was returning to its base south of Buenos Aires after a routine mission to Ushuaia, near the southern tip of South America. Then, suddenly, it went silent.
According to the Associated Press, no one has been able to contact the sub or any of its 44 crew members since Wednesday, even though an international collection of rescuers are scanning all radio frequencies and scouring the waters near the San Juan’s most recent ping.
Complicating matters: strong winds and high waves that were battering search-and-rescue ships.
The Argentine government had received logistical help from the governments of Britain, Chile and the United States, including NASA — other countries have also offered aid — but as of Saturday morning, no surface or visual contact had been made, the AP reported.
The sub has multiple ways of communicating. It has ample food and oxygen, the Argentine navy said, and its protocol is to surface if there’s a communications blackout.
“The last position [registered] was two days ago,” navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said, according to the AP. “Without wanting to be alarmist or overdramatic, the facts are that no form of communications could be established between the vessel and its command, even with the alternative methods that the submarine has.
“What we interpret is that there must have been a serious problem with the communications [infrastructure] or with the electrical supply, cables, antennae or other equipment.”
[Nuclear sub sailors fired after ‘absolutely disgraceful’ parties with a prostitute and cocaine]
Worried relatives had gathered at the submarine’s base, where they hoped to hear the first updates.
“We are praying to God and asking that all Argentines help us to pray that they keep navigating and that they can be found,” Claudio Rodriguez, the brother of one of the crew members, told the local Todo Noticias TV channel, according to the AP. “We have faith that it’s only a loss of communications.”
News of the stricken submarine had even reached the Vatican. Pope Francis, an Argentina native and the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, offered his “fervent prayers for the 44 officers aboard the ARA San Juan” in a message released on his behalf Saturday by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, according to CNN. Francis “asks that his closeness be conveyed to their families and to the military and civil authorities of the country in these difficult moments.”
Those family members and the Argentine government were facing a cruel fact of submarine life. The vessels are often among a country’s most expensive and complex military assets — and, during accidents or times of crisis, their most vulnerable.
Over the years, several submarines have vanished, often igniting mysteries that lasted decades.
On May 27, 1968, the USS Scorpion failed to return to port, unexplainedly sinking 11,220 feet beneath the Atlantic Ocean along with its 99 crewmen and two nuclear torpedoes, according to USA Today. A Navy inquiry found that the cause of the sinking “cannot be definitively ascertained” — and the cause of the sub’s demise still remains fuzzy decades later.
Theories abound, of course: a torpedo self-fired into the ship, destroying it from the inside, or a battery exploded, inflicting critical damage. The Navy has routinely tested the water around the ship for radioactivity, according to USA Today, but has denied a proposal by civilian marine disaster experts to investigate the wreckage.
In August 2000, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk suddenly sank during a planned and closely monitored Russian military exercise, killing all 188 sailors aboard, according to the New York Times. It was hours before the Russian government even knew something was amiss.
[He put on an 82nd Airborne cap and gave a KKK salute in Charlottesville. Vets had words.]
The most likely explanation was that fuel in a torpedo detonated, setting off a chain reaction in a sub once deemed unsinkable. The Russians have said the Kursk used an outdated and unstable hydrogen peroxide propellant.
Conspiracy theories abound, and at least one real-life horror story was verified: Not all of the sailors died in the initial blast, according to the New York Times.
For hours, some fought fruitlessly to survive.
“13:15,” Lt. Capt. Dimitri Kolesniko, the commander of the turbine room wrote, noting the military time. “All personnel from compartments six, seven and eight moved to the ninth. There are 23 of us here. We have made this decision as a result of the accident. None of us can get out.”
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North Korea Says Nuclear Weapons Only Option Against ‘Repressive US Imperialists’
North Korea is rejecting calls from China to step away from its nuclear program, claiming such weapons are vital to the security of its people, the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency reported Friday.
« The conclusion that our army and people have reached via the history of North Korea-U.S. confrontations is there is no way other than standing against the repressive U.S. imperialists only with a nuclear deterrent of justice, » the state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun wrote in an article entitled « (U.S) Should Abandon Stupid Ambition. » « We’ve already made clear that we would never take even one step back from a road to beefing up national nuclear power unless the U.S. hostile policy against us comes to an end. »
Kim Jong Un’s regime refuses to give up its nuclear program. Getty Images
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This came shortly before Song Tao—a senior Chinese envoy—arrived in Pyongyang on Friday to discuss the tense situation with Kim Jong Un’s regime over its long-range missile tests and nuclear ambitions, which have led to a slew of economic sanctions to be leveled against the reclusive state. China, which is North Korea’s top trading partner and most important ally, has participated in these United Nations–orchestrated sanctions. The relationship has been strained with Kim at the helm as his erratic behavior has increasingly placed Pyongyang at odds with Beijing.
President Donald Trump described Song’s visit as a « big move » in a tweet on Thursday, but it’s unclear whether any real progress can be made.
The president returned from a 12-day trip to Asia on Tuesday, during which North Korea was at the top of his agenda. During a visit to Seoul, Trump directly addressed Kim while giving a speech before South Korea’s National Assembly, stating, « The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer. They are putting your regime in grave danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face. »
« Yet, despite every crime you have committed against God and man, you are ready to offer, and we will do that—we will offer a path to a much better future. It begins with an end to the aggression of your regime, a stop to your development of ballistic missiles, and complete, verifiable, and total denuclearization, » the president added.
Pyongyang has continued to show no interest in negotiation, however, and claimed Trump « begged » for nuclear war during his Asia trip. Kim’s regime was also livid about drills involving nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carriers that occurred near the Korean Peninsula at the tail end of Trump’s journey.
Meanwhile, China has called for the U.S. and North Korea to agree to a « freeze-to-freeze, » in which Pyongyang would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for the U.S. and South Korea stopping large-scale military exercises. But neither country has shown any sign of agreeing to such an initiative.
« President Xi recognizes that a nuclear North Korea is a grave threat to China, and we agreed that we would not accept a so-called freeze-for-freeze agreement, like those that have consistently failed in the past, » Trump said Wednesday.
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Kushner testified he did not recall any campaign WikiLeaks contact
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Alabama Senate Race Aggravates Deep Divide in Republican Party
The statement by the Alabama Republican Party on Thursday that it stood by Mr. Moore and “trusts the voters” to decide whether he should be elected to the Senate underlined the divisions between Washington and the grass roots. And the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, made clear which side Mr. Trump was on, echoing that sentiment.
In recent days, some notable figures in the conservative movement have also given Mr. Moore cover. Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, who saw Mr. Moore’s upset primary victory against an establishment Republican as a turning point in the war he is waging against Washington, has told his associates that he is unwavering in his belief that Mr. Moore should fight on.
Sean Hannity of Fox News, who this week delivered Mr. Moore an ultimatum to answer for allegations of sexually predatory behavior, backed down on Wednesday night, telling his audience that Alabama voters — not him — should ultimately decide.
Those moves were a telling rebuke of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and other Republicans in Washington who have either called for Mr. Moore to leave the race or for his expulsion from the Senate should he be elected.
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Al Drago for The New York Times
“This is an effort by Mitch McConnell and his cronies to steal this election from the people of Alabama and they will not stand for it!” Mr. Moore wrote on Twitter on Thursday. “I’m gonna tell you who needs to step down,” he continued in another post, “that’s Mitch McConnell.”
But many Republicans believe that trying to remove Mr. Moore from the race or expel him from the Senate if he wins would further enrage the party’s restive base and kill the small-dollar fund-raising that both political parties rely heavily on. And it would provide the kind of raw, angry grass-roots energy that Mr. Bannon says he needs to achieve his goal of ensuring that Mr. McConnell is not the Republican leader a year from now.
“Roy Moore would be a thorn in the Senate G.O.P. leadership’s side, and they would be happy to expel him hoping to both dissuade others and put down the Bannon rebellion,” said Erick Erickson, the Christian conservative writer and radio host who has argued that the debate over Mr. Moore should be viewed in the context of the much larger and more pitched battle between the party’s establishment and anti-establishment wings.
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Party leaders, Mr. Erickson added, “are not as interested in the long-term consequences.” They just want to send a signal by defeating Mr. Moore that the conservative insurrection can and will be crushed, he added. Writing on his website recently, Mr. Erickson said, “I don’t blame the Roy Moore voters for thinking people are out to get them because people really are out to get them.”
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Mr. Erickson, like Mr. Bannon, did not initially support Mr. Moore when the primary for the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, was a three-way contest. In the first round of voting, it was Mr. Moore against Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed to the seat and was supported by Mr. McConnell, and Representative Mo Brooks, a conservative favorite who is much less unpredictable and polarizing. But after Mr. Brooks did not make the runoff, conservatives say, they rallied behind Mr. Moore because of what he represents to them: someone who is under attack from the same Republicans they believe have long tried to marginalize religious conservatives.
That sense of marginalization is real for many. A caller into Rush Limbaugh’s radio program on Tuesday expressed similar suspicions, saying he believed Mr. Moore’s ouster would be the beginning of a purge of the party’s right wing. “But my worry,” said the caller, who identified himself as Jim from Missouri, “is the so-called conservatives in Congress are going to fall prey to this and throw this man under the bus. And then they’ll forever set a precedent for getting rid of conservative people that we might try to elect.”
Many on the right have openly wrestled with how quickly Mr. Moore should be judged and condemned.
“I think it’s complicated, and that is 100 percent the truth,” said Penny Young Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, a Christian conservative group.
Ms. Nance said many conservatives were weighing a number of arguments and counterarguments: a suspicion of the national news media against the sense that Mr. Moore’s accusers seem credible, the fact that the 1970s and ‘80s, when he is accused of committing the acts, was “a different time,” and the fact that Republican Party leaders have tried to thwart him repeatedly throughout his career.
“It’s also about the people of Alabama making their own decisions instead of Washington foisting its opinion on them,” Ms. Nance added. “They need to decide. That’s part of what makes them so angry: Washington bureaucrats and elitists telling them what they need to do.”
The inclination to dig in on Mr. Moore could also be a symptom of a larger cultural shift in politics. Americans are more likely now to say that elected officials can still do their jobs in an ethical manner even if they have committed immoral personal acts, research has found. And no group seems to have come around on this question more drastically than white evangelical Protestants, according to one survey conducted before the election last year by the Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings.
More than seven in 10 were willing to overlook transgressions in a politician’s personal life, the survey said, compared with three in 10 who were asked the same question in 2011.
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